Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has described the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, under the leadership of Ibrahim Magu,
as a toothless bulldog.
The former President who was addressing friends and family members who had
gathered in his home to celebrate his 79th birthday, said over the years
the anti-graft agency has lost its vigour.
He said the EFCC which was set up during his reign as President has gone
down in its performance and fight against corruption.
Comparing the tenure of Nuhu Ribadu, the first Chairman of the anti-graft
agency, Obasanjo said the present EFCC was not more than a “toothless
bull-dog”, calling for an appraisal aimed at determining while the EFCC
has lost courage.
According to him, “the good thing is that we all enjoyed the work and we
all felt that we were contributing our own meaningful quota to the
development of the country.
“As all know, when Nuhu Ribadu was handling the EFCC, he handled it in
such a way that people coined the saying that the beginning of wisdom is
the fear of Ribadu.
” And the thing you will ask is how did we go down, how did we lose that,
how did we? Nuhu Ribadu is still here, he is still alive, the institution
that we started together is still there, what made the institution to
become a toothless bull dog.
“We need to work things out so that we don’t take two steps forward, one
step and three steps backward.”